By Roxana Shirazi It’s the mustard gas that has made me The way I am, my love. No garlic, mustard or horseradish smell, I got seduced by the odourless pure type, It’s not my fault. It’s the days of sitting in the honey silence With cherry-patterned skirts cuddling my little knees Waiting for all the boys to notice me that has made me The way I am, my friend. Yperite bleeding through the Persian dusk. Contaminating/poisoning/dirtying. It’s the bad uncle holding my five year ol

By Mara Adamitz Scrupe I see myself as seductress believer ( dulcius ex asperis ) in the rush of hope & hardship toward the tide of sweet license I am purposeful: a seeker a daughter of an earthly epoch (& an eyeblink away from the next) a siren of desire in proximity to virtue (though evidently not close enough) I may be an archetype or a means to an end (in a quagmire of uncertainty I wonder at the clarity of the upright ringe

By Savannah Smyth She lay on the slab, White sheets hitched up like a skirt, One red eye, pink as the morning, Interlocked with mine as I wiped the pus from her petticoat. When I asked why she was naked, Chest bare, chest broken- he said ‘The dead have a funny way of flirting.’ I averted my gaze as I plunged my fingers into her chest, Rooted around in ruby until I found it- With her beaten heart in my hands I wondered, How carelessly others had held it before me. Spotted wi